 | Asialink invites you to a conversation about Asian identity and regionalism. The conversation will move across Asia, from South Korea, India and China – Singapore, the Philippines and Cambodia – and Australia, where historically Asia was a geographic, rather than a psychological, reality. These themes are brought together in Alterities in Asia, a new volume of essays published by Routledge. Editor Leong Yew’s collection investigates the politics of identity in Asia, and how different groups of people – inside and outside Asia – have attempted to relate to the places and cultures of the region. Alterity – the state of being ‘other’ or ‘different’– is not easily contained within ‘Asia’ but, rather, moves through and beyond its borders. Alterity might be expressed through literature and film, policy and diplomacy, power and knowledge, and at different points in time. Although coming from these different intellectual perspectives, the contributors collectively assert that the overlay of ‘otherness’ complicates how one understands distinctions between ‘West’ and ‘East’ and the various interplays of identity and regionalism within Asia. |
Leong Yew is an Assistant Professor in the University Scholars Programme,National University of Singapore. His first book, The Disjunctive Empire of International Relations (2003) examined the complicity between imperial discourse and contemporary 20th century texts on international politics. He is currently engaged in the examination of Asian identities. Alterities in Asia is one of its outcomes, and he is working on a forthcoming monograph, Asianism: The Politics of Regional Consciousness in Singapore.
Professor David Walker is Chair of Australian Studies at Deakin University and recently held the Distinguished Visiting Chair of Australian Studies at the University of Copenhagen. He is also a Visiting Professor in the School of Foreign Studies, Renmin University, Beijing. Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia, 1850 to 1939 (1999) has recently been translated into mandarin and Hindi and his most recent book Not Dark Yet is due for release in March 2011.
Sally Percival Wood joined Asialink in August 2010 as Program Manager, Applied Research and Analysis. She has published on Australia’s relations with India and the Middle East, and is co-author of Identity, Education and Belonging: Arab and Muslim Youth in Contemporary Australia (2008). Sally has also recently published on the West’s literary and media perceptions of China – from Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe to Sax Rohmer’s enduring Dr Fu Manchu series.
| TIME: | 2.15pm for 2.30pm to 4.00pm | |
| VENUE: | Yasuko Hiraoka Myer Room | |
| Level 1, Sidney Myer Asia Centre | ||
| The University of Melbourne | ||
| Corner of Swanston Street & Monash Road (Gate 4) | ||
| ENQUIRIES: | Mila Sudarsono | |
| m.sudarsono@asialink.unimelb.edu.au |
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